My 2nd year of collecting baseball cards, and the last card set before expansion to 24 teams and divisional play. I have completed the whole set. (Series 1-5, and 7 during 1968. In my neighborhood, the 6th series was unavailable. I completed this in the 1980s.) -- 28-SEP-2009

Sunday, August 14, 2016

Max Alvis (#340)

Max Alvis was the Indians’ regular 3rd baseman from 1963 to 1968, then shared the job with utilityman Lou Klimchock in 1969.

I was going to start off this post saying "With the steep decline in Leon Wagner’s and Rocky Colavito’s home run totals in 1967, Alvis became the lead slugger for the Tribe." Today I see that this was only for 1967, as the next year Max also caught the disease. After averaging 20 homers per season from ‘63 to ‘67, he hit only 8 in 1968, and 1 in limited duty in 1969.

Alvis was signed by Cleveland in 1958, and made his major-league debut in September 1962 by starting 12 of the final 16 games at third base.

Max was installed as the team’s regular 3rd baseman at the start of 1963, replacing the veteran Bubba Phillips. Max started 158 games as a rookie and hit 22 homers.

He was a steady performer for his first 5 full seasons, hitting between 17 and 22 home runs, and made 2 All-Star teams during that time. He missed 6 weeks in 1964 with spinal meningitis, but still hit 18 homers in only 380 at-bats.

He returned to full-time status in 1965, and played 155+ games in each of the next 3 seasons. As mentioned at the top, he lead the Indians in 1967 with 21 homers, and made his 2nd All-Star team.

In 1968, Alvis’ homers (8) and batting average (.223) fell off drastically, and was out of the starting lineup for much of July.
Max only started 51 games in 1969 (mostly in May and June), as the team used Klimchock and several others to fill in.

Three days before the 1970 season, Alvis and outfielder Russ Snyder were traded to the Brewers for 2nd baseman Frank Coggins and outfielder Roy Foster. Alvis started 16 of the first 18 games at the hot corner, but was then replaced by Tommy Harper and only saw spot duty for the rest of the season. He was released after the season.

Set description I posted in Zistle

The 1968 Topps set included 598 cards, 11 fewer than the previous year. As in 1967, the cards had vertical backs. Topps returned to the teams’ color scheme that was used in the 1966 set (and would also be used in 1969). Cards in the high-numbered 7th series are more difficult to find, due to limited distribution that late in the season.

Among the cards are 20 manager cards, 12 league leader cards, and 8 World Series cards. Inexplicably, there are only team cards for 13 of the 20 teams. The set includes just 30 rookie stars cards (down from 43 the previous year), and there is no Giants Rookie Stars card, which is odd considering that Bobby Bonds would have been a candidate for that card. Multi-player cards decreased from 13 in 1967 to just 3 in the 1968 set. Two of them feature stars from multiple teams. All-star cards (20) returned to the set in 1968, after being absent for several years.

The 1968 set includes the final cards for 48 players and 2 managers, including long-time veterans Eddie Mathews and Roger Maris (who both wrapped up their careers in the 1968 World Series), Rocky Colavito, Elston Howard, Bill Henry, Larry Jackson, Al Worthington, Norm Siebern, Larry Sherry, Jim Bouton, and Floyd Robinson.

Notable rookie cards in the set are Nolan Ryan and Jerry Koosman (on the same card) and Johnny Bench. Other rookie cards in the set (all “solo” cards) include Gary Nolan, Don Wilson, Manny Sanguillen, Mike Marshall, and Danny Frisella.

1968 rookies with significant playing time who were omitted from the set include Reggie Jackson, Bobby Bonds, Del Unser, Bobby Cox, Hector Torres, Tom Burgmeier, Marty Pattin, and Sparky Lyle.

Other quirks in the 1968 set: - For some (contractual?) reason, all the Astros cards show the team name as “Houston”, and all Astros logos are airbrushed out of the photos. - Since the Athletics moved to Oakland in the off-season, all photos are airbrushed. - As mentioned above, 7 teams did not have a team card, and there was no Giants Rookie Stars card. - The design of the “burlap” borders was changed after the first series. - The "Topps All-Rookie Team" trophy is missing from the cards for Rick Monday, Rich Nye, and Dick Hughes.